PC:Sun
How did BBC’s The Traitors generate £21.8 million for the Scottish economy
The BBC’s The Traitors, filmed at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, has contributed an estimated £21.8 million in Gross Value Added (GVA) to Scotland’s economy between 2022 and 2025. The Traitors: Scotland Economic Impact says the show format has supported over 750 workforce jobs, an average of 189 a year. Every £1 of GVA directly generated by the production meant a total of £6.84 was added to the Scottish economy, according to the BBC report. Nine series have been filmed at the castle since 2022, with four more confirmed for 2026. The Traitors contributed £21.8 million in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the Scottish economy between 2022 and 2025. Every £1 of GVA directly generated by the production meant a total of £6.84 was added to the Scottish economy. On employment, the report says the show supported over 750 workforce jobs across all series produced between 2022 and 2025, an average of 189 jobs per year. The report adds that for every job directly working on the production in Scotland, a further 14.8 jobs were created across the wider Scottish economy through spending with local suppliers. It also reports that the production period was 17 weeks in 2025 and is set to increase to 25 weeks in 2026, owing to the commissioning of an additional US series for NBCU. It cites research commissioned by Screen Scotland that estimated £140 million of GVA was added to Scotland’s economy in 2023 through tourism expenditure associated with screen tourism, a figure that relates to screen tourism as a whole rather than to the show alone. Tour operator EvanEvan reported a 44% rise in Edinburgh-related searches and a 27% increase in Scotland-wide searches in the first three weeks of January 2025. VisitScotland says it has run themed content across social media and its website, and sent an email to around 289,000 subscribers ahead of the finale. US visitors accounted for 22% of all overseas trips to Scotland and 36% of all overseas spending in 2024, citing VisitScotland analysis of the International Passenger Survey. The report also states that 20% of the total economic impact between 2022 and 2025, over £4 million in GVA, is felt within Scotland’s audiovisual sector.
Because the programme is in production for only a few weeks of the year, the actual number of roles created is likely to be higher. Because it is made from a production base in Scotland and over half the spend on the production team goes to people living outside London, on production status, the foreword by Hayley Valentine, Director of BBC Scotland, says the show qualifies as a Scottish production under Ofcom’s rules.
It says this reflects direct production spending as well as indirect effects across sectors such as hospitality, transport and local services, and the induced effect of spending by workers in the local economy. Among the figures are a 190% rise in Expedia searches for the Highlands following series two, a 69% rise in Trainline bookings to Inverness since the show began, and a 60% increase in SIXT-reported Google searches for “castle holidays” over January 2025. During the celebrity series, searches including “Traitors castle”, “Where is the Traitors castle?” and “Where is Traitors filmed?” were between 17% and 33% above 2025’s previous high, according to the VisitScotland. The report says Ardross Castle, which operates as an events venue, has seen a fourfold increase in enquiries, which it attributes to the show’s public profile, and is now fully booked each year. The report concludes that the show “has proven to be a landmark production for Scotland”. It also says Screen Scotland, Studio Lambert and the BBC have created training placements, and that spillover effects were acknowledged qualitatively but not quantified.
The Traitors is strengthening Scotland’s existing screen tourism sector. It states that the castle is not open to the public and that Ardross Castle is privately owned. It quotes Ardross Castle director Loukas Tsarmaklis as saying the production has brought business to local taxis, shops, building suppliers, wholesale suppliers and hotels, mainly around Alness and Inverness. The report states that series one and two of the BBC’s The Traitors qualified as Made out of London productions, and that the NBCU series, which make up roughly half of the commissioning volume, are not required to meet the same criteria. It also records that interviewees pointed to ongoing challenges, including the need for more studio space and post-production facilities in the Highlands, and the lack of clear pathways to long-term employment. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.